Digital Financial Services Lab (DFS Lab); an early-stage accelerator backed by the Gates Foundation that supports entrepreneurs refine, grow and launch ground-breaking fintech ventures in developing countries has opened applications for its third startup bootcamp, which looks to identify and invest more than USD$1 million in African startups.

During the one week bootcamp, entrepreneurs will go through a workshop to design and test new fintech ideas where rapid prototyping and UI/UX mockup support will be available on site. Participating teams will create quick prototypes for representative customers and get actual feedback to see if there’s real potential for their solutions.

Participating teams are expected to come up with a breakthrough financial technology that can help bring financial services to the billions globally who lack them. In this call for entrepreneurs, DFS needs conversational interfaces, technologies that work on feature phone (non-smartphones), and technologies that help close the financial services gender gap as key priorities.

The bootcamp is set to be held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania from 3rd to 9th of December, 2017 where fintech entrepreneurs with the most innovative solutions will be awarded up to USD$50,000 (approx. 1.8 Billion UGX) in funding and six months in DFS Lab’s accelerator including weekly advisory calls, connections to DFS Labs extensive network of fintech experts, and further fundraising support.

DFS Lab has supported high potential entrepreneurs in Africa and Asia, investing in more than 18 startups since its launch in 2015.

“We are excited to have the opportunity to invest in breakthrough technologies that can help reach the billions of people in South Asia and Africa who lack financial services,” DFS Lab Director Dr Jake Kendall, said in a press statement.

Small and nimble teams of world class entrepreneurs, engineers, product managers, to mention a few – that have deep expertise in fintech, payments, or retail finance and a strong desire to work in developing countries to build digital services for millions of users, can apply now (FOLLOW THIS LINK) not later than November 3rd, 2017.

“We are looking for two-person teams who wish to launch a company or very early stage startups with less than USD$100K investment to date who want to send two co-founders to our bootcamp. Please have a founder or co-founder fill out the application, DFS Lab writes in a press statement.”